The installation of engineered systems, such as utilities (e.g., electric, telecommunications, water, sewer, gas), at a work site requires the preparation of an engineering plan that construction technicians can use in the field to identify and/or place (install) various system components at the work site. For example, in connection with cable systems for television, telephone and/or data communications, technicians may use an engineering plan to identify where junction boxes, conduit, switches and other components are to be placed at a work site, perform necessary excavation or other preparation at the various equipment locations, and install the equipment appropriately.
Conventional approaches for generating engineering plans for utility installation often are based on “facilities maps.” A “facilities map” is any physical, electronic, or other representation of the geographic location, type, number, and/or other attributes of various components of a system infrastructure for one or more utilities, also commonly referred to as “facilities.” Facilities maps may be supplied by various facility owners and may indicate the geographic location of the facility lines (e.g., pipes, cables, and the like) owned and/or operated by the facility owner. For example, facilities maps may be supplied by the owner of the gas facilities, power facilities, telecommunications facilities, water and sewer facilities, and so on.
As indicated above, facilities maps may be provided in any of a variety of different formats. As facilities maps often are provided by facility owners of a given type of facility, typically a set of facilities maps includes a group of maps covering a particular geographic region and directed to showing a particular type of facility disposed/deployed throughout the geographic region. One facilities map of such a set of maps is sometimes referred to in the relevant arts as a “plat.”
Perhaps the simplest form of facilities maps is a set of paper maps that cover a particular geographic region. In addition, some facilities maps may be provided in electronic form. An electronic facilities map may in some instances simply be an electronic conversion (i.e., a scan) of a paper facilities map that includes no other information (e.g., electronic information) describing the content of the map, other than what is printed on the paper maps. Alternatively, however, more sophisticated facilities maps also are available which include a variety of electronic information, including geographic information and other detailed information, regarding the contents of various features included in the maps. In particular, facilities maps may be formatted as geographic information system (GIS) map data, in which map features (e.g., facility lines and other features) are represented as shapes and/or lines, and the metadata that describes the geographic locations and types of map features is associated with the map features.
Examples of a wide variety of environmental landmarks and other features that may be represented in GIS facilities map data include, but are not limited to: landmarks relating to facilities such as pedestal boxes, utility poles, fire hydrants, manhole covers and the like; one or more architectural elements (e.g., buildings); and/or one or more traffic infrastructure elements (e.g., streets, intersections, curbs, ramps, bridges, tunnels, etc.). GIS facilities map data may also include various shapes or symbols indicating different environmental landmarks relating to facilities, architectural elements, and/or traffic infrastructure elements.
As noted above, one common technique for generating an engineering plan for an installation relating to a cable system (e.g., for television, telephone, and/or data communications) involves sending an engineer to a particular work site with one or more printed facilities maps (or “plats”) that may include information such as existing streets and buildings, as well as existing utility features, such as telephone poles, transformer and junction boxes, electrical lines, sewer and water lines or valves, and so on in the geographic area including and proximate to the work site. Using the plat(s), the engineer may take notes either on the plat itself or on a separate paper regarding where and how each component of the cable system to be installed will be placed. Thereafter, the engineer (or a drafts person) may use the notes to prepare the engineering plan in the form of a computer-aided design (CAD) drawing (or other drawing in electronic form) that defines the details for the cable system installation. This engineering plan (which may include drawing elements as well as textual notes) can then be used for obtaining needed permits and approvals, as well as in a competitive bidding process, and ultimately actual installation of the cable system at the work site.